PATHOS · Photonic and nAnomeTric High-sensitivity biO-Sensing

We plan to develop a radically new technology for the sensing of bio-systems and in-vivo diagnostics of biomedical conditions using hitherto unexploited tools of unconventional complex-system dynamical control and information sampling/processing. They will be founded on groundbreaking concepts and challenging experiments, with the following aims: (a) Magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) and optically-detected magnetic-resonance (ODMR) sensing will be dramatically improved by orders of magnitude through highly selective cooling/suppression of thermal noisy background in-vivo with unprecedented spectral and spatial (subnano- or submicron-) resolution. It will be based on so far unemployed (but conceptually proven) stochastic (anti-) Zeno effects and collective-spin cooling pioneered by the partners of this very interdisciplinary consortium. (b) Development of novel probing configurations and protocols: NMR intra-molecule/intra-tissue sensing and intra-cell NV-center thermometry based on dynamical control being aimed at unravelling of hitherto invisible biochemical activity features masked by inhomogeneous broadening. (c) Advanced sensing-data processing, including high-order correlation spectroscopy – innovative strategies that seek to exploit dynamically controlled/modified noise in bio-systems as a source of previously untapped information on physiological (temporal) processes and anatomical (structural) detail. This information will be obtained by treating bio-systems as complex, noisy “environments” through novel probing/estimation procedures and compressed (sparse) imagery of the spectrally and spatially structured “environment”, but reducing drastically their complexity by dynamically controlling the relevant information encoded by key noise parameters. The overarching goal will be to substantially enrich the spatial and spectral information content and robustness of diverse medical diagnostic procedures and thereby minimize the exposure time/irradiation dosage.